[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/biology-students.jpg” caption=”Pictured are the senior biology students who represented McMaster at the 2006 Ontario Biology Day. See names at bottom of article. Click here for FULL size“]Forty-six McMaster biology students presented talks based on their senior research projects at the 19th annual Ontario Biology Day last weekend at the University of Western Ontario. The group constitutes almost half of those currently conducting senior thesis/project courses in the department of biology.

Ten of the students' supervisors, including faculty from the departments of biology, pediatrics, and psychiatry & behavioural neurosciences were on hand to lend support, including chair of biology, Turlough Finan, and associate chair, Pat Chow-Fraser.
McMaster's students were among 110 from eleven Ontario universities to give oral presentations on original research they conducted during this academic year.

“We've doubled the number of students going to the conference this year,” said Chow-Fraser, “and we have increased the diversity of research topics, with talks on human biology, genetics, tropical ecology, evolutionary biology, fish physiology, microbiology, neuroscience, and wetland ecology”.

McMaster's biology department also distinguished itself by sending more faculty to the weekend conference than did the host department at UWO. “In our department, we walk the talk. Giving students hands-on research experience in their undergraduate education is very important to our mission as a research-intensive department, and attending a conference to present research results is just part of this overall experience,” says Chow-Fraser.

One of the student supervisors, Margaret Fahnenstock noted, “Many of my colleagues at other universities can't believe that some of best researchers have been undergraduates in these courses.”

The department of biology will host Ontario Biology Day at McMaster in 2007.

Members of the McMaster community are invited to attend the Biology Undergraduate Symposium (BUS) to take place on Thursday, April 6 in the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning & Discovery(MDCL) when all 110 senior thesis and project students will give presentations on their research.

Click here for the presentation schedule. The opening address is scheduled for 9 a.m. and the post-symposium reception for students and supervisors begins at 5 p.m.

. Michael Alkema (Chow-Fraser), Tahani Al-Rifai (Stone), Michelle Anstey (Finan), Holly Buttigieg (Fahnestock), Sarah Chahine (Stone), Amy Cheng (Zhu), Alvin Choi (Schellhorn), Maja Cvetkovic (Chow-Fraser), Edward Dang (Xu), Kalindi Dhekney (McClelland), Kira Dickie (Sheffield), Christine Elder (Jacobs), Amal Elsohemy (Fahnestock), Sandy Faheim (Stone), Ashley Gaw (Kolasa), Alex Glover (Tarnopolosky), Florence Hosang (Fahnestock), Andrew Hughes (Schellhorn), Ali Ibrahimi (Schellhorn), Fathima Iftikar Mohideen (Wood), Joanne Kam (Wood), Menaka Kanagaratnam (Golding), Kitty Ki (Mishra), Kris Knorr (Finan), Anna Kobylinski (Xu), Dara Lambie (Zhu), Jennifer Lavery (Kolasa), Erin Leonard (Wood), Kimberley Lewis (McKay), Katherine MacDuff (Fahnestock), Marcie Maciejewski (Kolasa), Tim Mahoney (Chow-Fraser), Monika Mogilnicka (Singh), Lindzie O'Reilly (Chow-Fraser), Barkha Patel (Tarnopolosky), Alexandra Pontefract (Stone), Cherise Poo (Cameron), Roxanne Razavi (Chow-Fraser), Parastoo Salehi (Stone), May Sanaee (Smieja), Sarah Scattolon (Foster), Amber Schram (Radhey), Marissa Sebastian (Kolasa), Jean Tien (Stone), Katharzyna Tomczyk (Doering), Brady Tracey (Evans), Ashlee Vincent (Xu), and Stephanie Yantsis (Stone).